“Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.”

Book 6, chapter 12.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 27, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion." by Benjamin Disraeli?
Benjamin Disraeli photo
Benjamin Disraeli 306
British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Pri… 1804–1881

Related quotes

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield photo

“We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters

19 December 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Context: We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.

William Hazlitt photo

“Man is a make-believe animal — he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

Notes of a Journey through France and Italy (1824), ch. XVI

Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”

Source: Tunnel in the Sky (1955), Chapter 2, “The Fifth Way” (p. 42)

Oscar Wilde photo
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. photo

“The great act of faith is when a man decides that he is not God.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Letter http://archive.org/stream/thoughtandcharac032117mbp#page/n495/mode/2up/search/great+faith+man+God to William James (24 March 1907).
1900s

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not rational.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings

Jiddu Krishnamurti photo
Tom Robbins photo

“When a man tries to own an individual, whether that individual be another man, an animal or even a tree, he suffers the psychic consequences of an unnatural act.”

Another Roadside Attraction (1971)
Context: When a man confines an animal in a cage, he assumes ownership of that animal. But an animal is an individual; it cannot be owned. When a man tries to own an individual, whether that individual be another man, an animal or even a tree, he suffers the psychic consequences of an unnatural act.

Related topics